Simon Hoban

Producer - Sliced Bread, BBC Sounds/BBC Radio 4. Humanist, Equalist, Keyboardist, Evertonist. Occasional chat with @MikeWardOnTV

[Nicole Lampert @nicolelampert]

Philosopher Sam Harris on @havivrettiggur podcast on the ‘moral confusion that is deeply unsustainable’ on the obsession with race which has taken over the left.
He’s speaking about it in terms of the Israel/ Palestine conflict but it could just as well be applied to the culture war rows surrounding the police behaviour in the Henry Nowak case.

[Eve Barlow @Eve_Barlow]

The people I’d personally like to see visit the Nova Exhibition in London is too long to post but it includes leaders such as Emily Eavis, Melvin Benn, Dirty Hit, XL, Annie Mac, Wolf Alice, Jessie Ware, Damon Albarn, Fontaines DC, Hot Chip, James Blake, Dua Lipa and the NME staff

[John Spencer @SpencerGuard]

100% there is no genocide in Gaza. No eradication project. People confused about what the word means is culturally appalling and dangerous for the future of western society. The confusion has indeed been engineered by people know what they are doing. No genocide does not mean simply too much death and destruction in war. It is about intent and action to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, in whole or in part. Sam Harris @MakingSenseHQ is spot on.

[Hadley Freeman @HadleyFreeman]

@davidyelland @GBNEWS Liberal media orgs: We’re kind so we don’t cover the facts about sex and gender
Journalist: Ok, I’ll find a news outlet that will let me write about this issue honestly
Liberal media orgs: Ha you’ve written about it in the right-wing press! Tory stooge! You’re discredited!

[Ed West @edwest]

We need an inquiry into the harms caused by anti-racism https://t.co/339upf4mRG

[Ed West @edwest]

Anti-racism and child sacrifice https://t.co/A70Ha9HoWI

[Conversations with Coleman @ConvoswColeman]

.@ColdxMan explains why he rejects the “Zionist” label.

“I would never call myself an ‘abolitionist.’ Why? Because the abolitionist movement was a specific historical movement…It achieved its aim…And now abolitionists only exist in history books.”

[David Deutsch @DavidDeutschOxf]

I stopped using Wikipedia some time ago for this reason.

[Zac Goldsmith @ZacGoldsmith]

This is the single most shocking testimony I have ever seen. 

Even more shocking is that so many people that I (& probably you) know decided on that day that the people behind this perversion deserved their active public support.
It is hard to have any faith in humanity when we see how easily large groups of people can be manipulated into supporting activities too cruel and disgusting even for the devil.
And not because they understand it, but simply because they see that as the fashionable position to take.

[Rob Rinder @RobbieRinder]

What is so chilling nowadays is not simply the resurgence of antisemitism itself but watching people who once proclaimed the loudest commitment to tolerance and human rights now unable (or unwilling) to recognise the same poison within their own ranks
https://t.co/tV1VhN9e4K

[Simon Hoban @simonhoban]

@havivrettiggur Oh I say

[Tom Holland @holland_tom]

It’s all too clear that a country in which Jews are attacked on the streets simply because they are Jewish, synagogues need to employ security, & anti-Semitic slogans & images are paraded through city centres or exhibited in art galleries is exactly what we’ve become.

[Jotam Confino @mrconfino]

I told @TimesRadio that it’s about time international journalists stop referring to propagandists working for terror groups as journalists.

The debate was sparked again a few days ago when two Lebanese people working for a media outlet controlled by Hezbollah caused outrage among journalists across the world, many of whom insisted that they were journalists as well.

It’s extremely disappointing that they would put themselves in the same category as someone literally doing propaganda for a terror group, purely out of spite for Israel.

I hope they would never categorize an Islamic State cameraman filming hostage beheading videos as a journalist. But I honestly don’t know anymore. We’ve seen this debate unfold countless times when Palestinians working for Hamas and Islamic Jihad media were killed in Gaza.

There is the same urge to insist that they were journalists.

It’s disrespectful and degrading to hardworking journalists who risk their lives on a daily basis reporting from war zones while trying to uphold journalistic standards.

The Hezbollah “journalists” couldn’t care less about journalistic standards. They had one job only: to spout propaganda for Hezbollah, a designated terror group—quite literally the opposite of journalism.

When internationally recognized journalists line up to come to Hezbollah propagandists’ defense, it sends a horrible signal to many aspiring journalists out there: that no matter how hard they work to live up to journalistic standards, at the end of the day they will be placed in the same category as terror propagandists.

And just to be clear, as I know the usual suspects will be very quick to accuse me of condoning the killings of the Hezbollah propagandists: that’s not what this is about. I’m not condoning anything. This is purely a debate about who gets to call themselves a journalist.

Some will automatically reply, “Well, where is the red line?”

The red line is when you start working for a terror group. Pretty simple

[Omid Djalili @omid9]

Could it be that a lot of people going on these marches genuinely have no idea what they are supporting, or do they consciously support this murderous, tyrannical regime and therefore the continued suppression of the Iranian people?

[Simon Hoban @simonhoban]

@coldxman Quite brilliant, as ever.

[Chris Rose @ArchRose90]

As a black person in the UK, I’ve never experienced the level of racism or intimidation which Jews are facing now.

Liberals wouldn’t dare to delve into conspiracy theories about an attack on black people.

But with Jews they do. I am ashamed & sick of it.
https://t.co/IY49MVSRxL

[Conversations with Coleman @ConvoswColeman]

Sam Harris: “You can logically differentiate antisemitism from anti-Zionism…those are distinct, at least in principle.”

“But in practice…the unique focus on Israel as a country that has a problem justifying its right to exist—I don’t know how else to explain that beyond some level of antisemitism.”

[Conversations with Coleman @ConvoswColeman]

Sam Harris on the misinformation, disinformation, and lies that have fueled public skepticism of U.S. support for Israel.

“We have people walking around with facts in their heads that are not facts…There are people who think that Israel has perpetrated a genocide in Gaza…They think there was a famine in Gaza…They believe they’ve seen pictures of this.

I’m not saying there hasn’t been tremendous suffering and death in Gaza. But if, in fact, it is true that the IDF faced an urban warfare challenge of a sort that no society has ever faced…If it is, in fact, true that the IDF has been better behaved, or at least as well-behaved as Americans or Brits or any other Western power has been in anything like an analogous situation…If all of that’s true, then what are we talking about here? What is this double standard that’s being applied to Israel?”

[Tom Whipple @whippletom]

Not the train man

[Campaign for Media Standards @4mediastandards]

After an antisemitic attack on a Jewish volunteer ambulance service, you’d expect focussed questions about the rise and threat of antisemitism in the UK.

Not @edballs on @GMB this morning.

Instead, he tried to shift the discussion – asking whether criticism of a mass iftar event in Trafalgar Square is “causing problems” for the Jewish community.

This isn’t balance or insight; its poor journalism that misses the point and dilutes the seriousness of antisemitism.

Well handled by @DovForman for staying on point.